[Peace-discuss] An anti-war strategy: support refusers

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Published on Tuesday, November 11, 2008
	by the Corvallis Gazette Times (Oregon)
	As I See It
	by Benjamin Lewis and Brandon Neely

On this day, Veterans Day, we would like to express to the American public why 
we, veterans of the Global War on Terror, have chosen to refuse orders to 
reactivate into military service. We are direct witnesses to the horrors of this 
war, having experienced its atrocities at their source, and we have decided that 
we can no longer carry out these illegal and immoral policies.

We believe that veterans and active duty G.I.s are in a key position to stop 
illegal and unjust war, and we are inspired by the resistance of troops who 
stood against the war in Vietnam. One of the pre-eminent reasons for the U.S. 
withdrawal from Vietnam was increasing dissent among the active duty troops 
stationed abroad and at home. By the end of the war, there were entire units 
refusing to participate in combat, many going as far as outright mutiny.

The U.S. learned a lesson from the Vietnam War: that it is unlikely, except in 
the event of self-defense, that regular civilians will execute the life 
threatening orders that are given to them by military authority. The solution of 
policy-makers was to create an all-volunteer force that negated the need for a 
draft. This translates into a mercenary force composed of America's 
disadvantaged: a sector of the U.S. demographic that is particularly susceptible 
to military recruitment for lack of other options and finding themselves with 
deployment orders again and again.

To compensate for huge pitfalls in recruitment since the invasion of Iraq, the 
military has resorted to recalling former service members. This policy is known 
as "involuntary activation" and utilizes deactivated service members, who still 
have time on their contracts in the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR), to fill 
shortcomings in specific job specialties. The abuse and misuse of this policy 
has escalated under the Bush administration to such a degree that it can now 
only be viewed as a "backdoor draft" that targets the same disadvantaged 
individuals the military sought out for enlistment, namely because they are 
better at not questioning orders.

However, we have now begun to question these orders. We are veterans of the wars 
in Iraq and Afghanistan and members of the IRR who have refused or will refuse 
any activation orders that would lead to use serving an unjust and imperial U.S. 
foreign policy. It is a prevailing notion that this refusal is unpatriotic, but 
we consider our actions the only choice. Not only did the U.S. invasions of Iraq 
and Afghanistan do great harm to the people of those countries, but it 
undermined the ostensible goal on which the wars were begun. Instead of stopping 
terrorism, it has proliferated terrorism, an expectation that was predicted well 
before the war started.

By refusing activation we are refusing to participate in wars that serve the 
purposes of furthering the careers of politicians and high-ranking officers. We 
openly support other IRR members who follow in these footsteps. The military is 
a force that rules through fear of retribution for disobeying its will. In 
reality, more than a third of IRRs simply refuse to report to duty. Most of the 
rest report out of fear that the military will change their discharge status or 
prosecute them for desertion, but up to this point, prosecution has been rare. 
Members of the IRR are not under the uniform code of military justice, and thus 
far, the military has had a practice of not prosecuting them with criminal 
charges unless they report in some form or function to activate. Very few 
willingly volunteer for activation.

There can be no promise that President-elect Barack Obama will stop the 
stressful and unfair techniques of back-to-back deployments, "stop-loss," or the 
backdoor draft that are damaging the psychology of veterans in irreparable ways. 
Nor that he will stop encouraging global violence by unlawful uses of force. It 
is in this vein that we turn to organizations like Courage to Resist, Iraq 
Veterans Against the War and many other large scale and grassroots organizations 
to solicit change in a largely unrepresentative democracy, and, to allow the 
voices of the people to ring through the halls of the Capital.

  Copyright © 2008 Corvallis Gazette Times

Benjamin Lewis is Former Marine Corps Mortarman, Iraq Veteran, IRR Recall 
Resister, and Peace Activist

Brandon Neely is Former U.S. Army Military Police Officer, Iraq Veteran, and IRR 
Recall Refuser